Instinct
by Mors101
Summary: Pressure always brings out the basic nature of people.  How do the Titans react under pressure?
1. Chapter 1

**I know that I need to work on Marching Orders, however, this concept has been nagging at me as I consider how that story is going to progress. So, I put it down and share it with you. Rest assured I will continue Marching Orders. The project is turning out much bigger than I anticipated, and this idea is just one thing I needed to iron out.**

**As always, I own nothing but the plot.**

* * *

><p>Beast Boy stood in the warehouse, surrounded by the Hive Five and completely alone.<p>

An alert had gone out in the Titans. The shit had hit the fan in Jump. Robin was taking on Slade in a quarry on the outskirts of town, Starfire was taking on Cinderblock somewhere in the Business District, Cyborg was battling it out with Overload at Jump City Mall, and Raven was chasing down Johnny Rancid and Dr. Light who were terrorizing town in a motorcycle that, according to her last report, was most likely built by Dr. Chang. That left Beast Boy to go to the pier and see what the Hive Five were up to.

See, follow, and then wait for backup. He wasn't to engage, after all, 5-1 are not good odds. But they found him, or, to be correct, they were waiting for him. After the initial attack, which he had managed to survive with some pretty good dodging—if he did say so himself—he attempted to get out of the warehouse. However, all the exits were blocked. The warehouse was more secure than a jail. The first open window he had tried to fly out of had been electrified. So, zapped, he fell back to the floor, morphed back into a human, and stood up groaning and surrounded by Mammoth, Seemore, Gizmo, Private Hive, and numerous clones of Billy Numerous.

"Gotcha now, cludgehead," sneered Gizmo as Mammoth stood behind him, cracking his knuckles ominously.

Beast Boy could feel his body groan as he retreated, his back hitting a wall.

"Time to make him a green stain on the ground," cackled Billy Numerous, as one of the clones pounded his fist into his hand, the meaty smack punctuating his threat. As Beast Boy looked around, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. These weren't the normal Hive Five, the group of wannabe villains who were a bit of a joke. Something inside him told him that this fight was different from just a normal heist, this was going to be a fight for his life.

A short, high-pitched whine sounded from Gizmo, and Beast Boy just barely managed to dodge a burst of energy that left a very solid, very lethal looking impact on the wall where he just was. After another short chase, the five villains managed to corner him against a wall by the door to the warehouse, and were moving in slowly, closing all avenues of escape.

Beast Boy felt his hackles rise, as he bared his teeth at them and growled, his ears flat against his head. He could feel the blood pounding in his head, and he could feel every animal in his body scream at him.

He wasn't human, nor was he animal. He fluctuated between the two, usually coming to rest on a side that was mostly human, with some animal characteristics. In battle, there were times he would become more animalistic, surrendering some of his human qualities. While in this state, he fought instinctively, and he fought very well. It was the one thing neither Mento nor Robin could understand. A human trains until they cannot screw up, actions become instinctive. But for Beast Boy, he already fought instinctively. The training actually confused him, making him think about what he was doing instead of going with the flow. He adapted—that's what you do as part of a team—but it limited his potential in a way that no one understood.

Slade, actually, was probably the only one who understood Beast Boy's true potential when he fought as an animal. The vicious fight on the carnival grounds that night more than proved to the supervillain that a mad Beast Boy, a Beast Boy fighting alone, was a force to be reckoned with.

Instinct, the infamous fight or flight, always raged through the green hero. Ever since he first got his abilities, the animals in him screamed at him to fight or run from his problems. His human side offered reason and shades of gray between the two. When you don't kill, you aren't fighting completely, and when you regrouped, that is not flight. The animal kingdom inside Beast Boy knew of no such nuances, just fight or flight.

The mongoose either eats the snake, or avoids it completely. When Beast Boy killed and ate the snake on that humid day in Africa as his mother looked on, he made a decision. It was natural for him, born human, the apex predator of nature, should decided that he would give more weight to the predatorial instincts dormant in him. He would fight, when it was feasible, only flying when not doing so would result in death.

But, he rarely gave into these instincts. To do so would mean, in the short-run, giving up on his humanity, his rationality, his morals and ethics. He would kill in this state, or he would completely abandon his team and mission. Nature brooked no compromise, and instinct was not an instrument to be used to decide between nuances. Instinct was a sledgehammer, and was never subtle.

So it was that Beast Boy made a decision in that warehouse. Looking up at the advancing foes, evil sneers on their faces he held up a hand. "Wait a second," the group paused and looked at each other. Was this a trick? "I'm going to warn you, I don't know what is going to happen, but if insist attacking me, I know it will be unpleasant. I won't even turn you in. I need to help the others. Just let me go and walk out of this place and we'll forget that this ever happened."

The Hive Five looked at each other incredulously. Really? They had him in a corner, outnumbered, and he was asking them to stop? Gizmo and Billy Numerous starting laughing, while Private Hive looked mad. Mammoth looked confused.

"Have you lost your mind?" laughed Gizmo, "you gotta get a new brain. We have you surrounded, outnumbered, and can destroy you at will, and you want us to stop?" He continued laughing.

Beast Boy's eyes hardened at this point. He could feel the roar of the animals, his instinct rising up in him. "Have it your way," he growled at them, and for the first time in a long while, he gave in to his instinct. He felt his humanity leave him as the change, vicious and painful, but intoxicating and freeing at the same time overcome his body. His bones changing and reforming, his body growing and hair sprouting as he became the fearsome Beast, the greatest apex predator. The Hive Five backed up a few steps as the soulless eyes stared at them. With a growl, the great beast smashed the light switch, plunging the warehouse into darkness, then sprung forward, shoulder tackling Mammoth and making its way into the maze of boxes.

With a muffled curse, Gizmo flipped one a light and Seemore adjusted his vision so that he could see.

"Form up, you useless bunch of rag-muffins," shouted Gizmo, turning his light onto the groaning Mammoth. "Holy shit, what did he do to you!" he exclaimed, as the light showed great claw marks making their way up Mammoth's torso and face, blood liberally falling from the wounds. Off to the side, Billy Numerous gave a short gasp.

"Seemore, stay with him, the rest of you, come with me, we're finding this green nuisance and putting him down," barked out Gizmo. With that, the three members walked into the darkness of the warehouse.

The Beast was no hero. The High Five were a threat to him, his pack, and his territory. They were to be eliminated or taught their place. The Beast sought submission, not justice, and death was just as valid a form of submission as surrender. With his heightened senses, and his ruthlessness, untempered by human emotion and reason, he was superior even to those who sought to kill him in that darkened warehouse, who relied on stratagems that, themselves, relied on deceiving a human. Within the confines of instinct, freedom was the norm.

The Beast silently, ruthlessly stalked the four souls within that warehouse. Seemore was laid low, quickly and efficiently. The three stumbling through the warehouse were silently picked off. Each one who disappeared adding to the paranoia of the others.

After Gizmo was literally plucked from the air by the jaws of the Beast and swiftly carried away, his screams suddenly ending at some point in the dark, Private Hive fell and huddled against a wall. Eventually, he heard a low growl, barely two feet from his face and he could make out the fearsome outlines of the face of the Beast. Something dripping from its maw, the Beast leaned in and sniffed at the panicking bad guy. In desperation, in instinct, Private Hive lashed out, catching the Beast squarely on the nose. It fell back in surprise, and then, giving a blood chilling howl, leaped forward, giving Private Hive no time to even scream.

A little later, the door to the warehouse flew off its hinges, and a giant creature walked out. Traces of red circling its mouth and claws. The officers who had responded to the emergency call of a dockworker who heard the screams fell back in surprise at the sudden appearance of the creature, who sniffed the air and then took off, racing towards the city, intent on finding the rest of its pack and ending the threat to it and it fellows.

* * *

><p><strong>Perhaps a rather abrupt ending, but I like it. As always, please read and review. Nothing is more encouraging then feedback, and nothing helps a writer more than criticism. I accept both.<strong>

**Thanks for reading,**

**Mors101**


	2. Chapter 2

**So, I live. This is a continuation of "Instincts," I won't change the category, yet. But this has been bugging me for awhile. I've put writing on the far backburner, as most of you who have been following "Marching Orders" can tell. I won't commit on an update for that anytime soon. I may actually go rewrite some of it.**

**However, this story is about Starfire, who I think is as interesting a character as Beast Boy. A few stories I've read talked about her royal background, and I wanted to expand on it, with my own little twist in what it made her. I hope you guys like it.**

**As usual, I own nothing.**

* * *

><p>Really, this was quite tiring, Starfire thought to herself. She actually really disliked fighting Cinderblock, especially in the middle of a busy area. It wasn't like she could hit the bad guys as hard as she really wanted, though, with Cinderblock, that was less of an issue—he could take a lot of damage. She could have been doing something much more interesting than punching a rock that just wouldn't stop—cooking, hanging out with Robin, pet Silkie—really, the possibilities were endless.<p>

A loud growl made her look up to see her nemesis bullrushing her. With a barely audible sigh, she went back to her task. She liked being a hero, she really did, but there were times when it was just a pain. There was no challenge in fighting Cinderblock, even if he seemed more determined than usual to hurt her. Flying forward, she punched him in the face, sending him flying into a thankfully empty plaza a little ways away.

There was just no honor in it for her. Cinderblock, as strong as he was and as much of a threat as he was to almost everyone else on the team (except maybe Raven) just couldn't really hurt her, at least, as he fought now. If he was smarter, she mused, than his strength could actually be problematic. However, as it stood now, all he did was just rush her or throw junk at her. The first was easy to counter, the latter easy to avoid.

Two loud smashes from the direction of the plaza brought Starfire back to the present. Cinderblock was up, and throwing stuff at her. Taking a millisecond to consider her options, she opted for destroying as much of the flying debris as possible, protecting any civilians still around and limiting property damage. Flying in, she unleashed a flurry of punches on the stone behemoth. When he finally crumpled, she sighed with relief. Looking around, she figured she'd wait for the police to show up and make sure that Cinderblock was truly down for the count. Perhaps even escort him to jail. The authorities on earth just couldn't seem to properly lock anyone up—much less a dangerous criminal.

Looking around, Starfire saw an undamaged bench and sat upon it, looking up at the sky. Times like this made her miss her home. She was, after all, Koriand'r, princess of the Tamaranean warriors. These battles with Cinderblock and other villains would have been special on her world. They would have been considered honor battles on her home planet, an institution that Robin said was similar to the earth duels. However, on Tamaran, these fights involved many sacred rituals, providing the parties multiple chances to honorably settle the issue without a battle. After all, these fights were to the death—one did not simply live with the loss of honor a defeat would entail—and the loss of a warrior was a blow to the community. However, honor was important, more so than life, and death in battle—even a duel—was better than living defeated. It showed that one was bested by a superior, itself no dishonor, and that one was still willing to face death. Living was just a form of cowardice, an attempt to thwart the great cycle of life and death, no matter what excuses were used.

She had seen many such fights in her youth, and they were always awe-inspiring. The stock that Tamaraneans put into honor always made such fights have that desperate quality that made them stunning examples of battle technique and charged with human emotions. However, she had never seen the battlefield duels. The ones that her father and mother and dear _gnorfka_ had taught her as a child—the great fight between O'drasdubal and Florka the Fair, the titanic clash of Ill'orium the Brave and the Prince of Chrysalius on the moons of Tamaran—legends of old that always left her warrior blood racing and wishing that she, princess of her people, could one day engage in such a fight and be a hero of her people. To be sung about in the ballads, to lay her enemies armor at the feet of the throne of _Z'hal_. The honor was one that was hardly ever reached, especially in the current times of mechanized warfare that made such one-on-one engagements archaic.

Once again, Starfire was brought out of her daydream. This time by the sound of her communicator. She flipped it open, a bit sad that she had been forced to leave these thoughts of her upbringing behind. War was in her blood, and the thought of a hard battle against a vicious opponent always made her homesick. She loved earth, and Robin, but sometimes, restraint taxed her too much.

"Yes," she said, expecting to see one of her friends on the other end. Perhaps they needed some aid and she could get off guarding the motionless Cinderblock and get some real action.

"Hello, Starfire," came the smooth, deep voice over the communicator.

"Slade," Starfire said, shocked, "how did you get a communicator?"

Slade just chuckled, sounding quite pleased with himself. "Well, child, if you must know, I took it off of your dear leader. He won't be needing it."

"If you did anything to Robin..."

"He's alive, for now, I want him to see this."

"See what?" Starfire asked.

"Why, the downfall of your little club, of course," Slade said, "I've arranged this day, child, and it will be a day to remember. This time, I've brought together a group of villains and outfitted them with the best weapons and training I could provide. We are all sick of you, sick of having a group of kids thwart us. Together, we will remove you, by any means necessary, and then rule the town."

"What do you mean, Slade?" Starfire asked, eyes narrowing as she considered his words. If this meant what she thought it did...

"Silly child, we are going to eliminate the Titans. I've taken out Robin, the inevitable result once I stopped toying around. The Hive Five will put Beast Boy down, Johnny Rancid and Dr. Light have all the tools they need to send Raven back to her father, and Cinderblock is just the one to take you out. After all, someone just needed to teach the brute a little about strategy."

Suddenly, Starfire was swept up in a tight grip and squeezed brutally. She could feel her ribs getting crushed. So, Slade taught Cinderblock how to play possum, that little bastard. Breathing was getting mildly difficult, and, with more difficulty than usual, Starfire managed to squirm out of the stone man's hand, only to be brutally swatted down into the pavement, barely managing to avoid the large foot falling down on her.

"It is a shame that the boy blunder is not awake to see your death," came a voice over her still open communicator, "but a concussion, broken arm and leg, and dislocated shoulder will put a person under for awhile. It certainly doesn't help that he's quite tied up now." Slade's voice barely covered his amusement. "How sad is it that, when the Jump City rogues actually start to try, the Titans lose. The only blessing is that, at this rate, poor Robin won't have long to live through this shame for long. I doubt that you all, and by extension, him, will last the day."

So, that's what he wanted, was it? Starfire thought, anger rising in her. He wanted to kill her, her friends, and take over the city. Eyes hardened, she paused in her battle, looking at the communicator. "You realize that you are talking about war." She said.

The pause was a mistake. Cinderblock swatted her out of the air, sending her into a skyscraper; quickly following his attack with a lampost. Her communicator, designed by Cyborg to take a ton of abuse, managed to survive the attack, dented but functional. As she lay in the office, groaning, she heard a harsh laugh from Slade. "Yes, I suppose it is a war, and it will be one of the shortest in history."

That did it. No one declares war on the princess of Tamaran and laughs about it. How dare him? This insignificant worm, this human. Who was he, compared to the Gordanians, the Spider League, the Kryptonians, and, most of all, the noble Tamaraneans? He, and his allies, were ilk to her. The royal blood of Tamaran ran through her veins, and she had just been spat on, metaphorically. This dishonor would not stand.

Standing up, Starfire hardened herself, mentally reminding herself to ask Robin for forgiveness for what she was about to do. It was, unfortunately, necessary. Grabbing her communicator, she looked at Slade, eyes hard and voice determined, "So, I take it that this is a declaration of war, Slade."

"I just said it is, child," Slade replied, coldly.

"I am not a child," Starfire replied, after pushing the lamp post off herself, "My name is Koriand'r, princess of Tamaran, and I demand respect as such."

"You are just a naïve, little girl," Slade replied, disdain evident in his words, "do not try to intimidate me, especially after Cinderblock has just introduced you to the business end of his fists."

"You are a worm," Starfire replied, her nose lifted slightly up in the air, her disdain for Slade becoming more evident as time went on. He refused to treat her with honor, so she would not deign to treat him honorably either.

A roar interrupted their back and forth. "I see my stone friend is impatient," Slade said, "how about you try to finish him and then we'll talk."

"No," Starfire declared, "you have made your declaration of war against me and my friends and this city. I, Koriand'r, princess of Tamaran and heir to the throne, wish to deliver a message back to you." With that, she walked to the edge of the hole in the building and flew down to the end of the street, keeping the communicator on. Standing about 50 yards from Cinderblock, she turned to stare at him, no emotion on her face. Slade thought this thing was a threat to her, what an insult. She'll show him, he'll regret this day, he'll regret not giving her the honor she deserved.

With a roar, Cinderblock started to sprint towards her. Without even blinking, Starfire raised a single hand and began charging up a starbolt. This time, she was not going to hold back. By the time the stone giant was 30 yards from her, she let loose. The bolt hit dead on, raising a cloud of smoke around the upper-half of Cinderblock's torso. The giant had stopped in his tracks, and slowly fell to his knees, where his chest and head were was just a giant hole.

Silence reigned for a few seconds before the communicator crackled to life. "Message received, princess," Slade began, "I await our battle eagerly."

"As do I," with that, Koriand'r, princess of the honorable warriors of Tamaran and heir to the throne, took off into the air, heading to the quarry. This day, she thought to herself, she would bring glory to herself and the Titans, for today, she will kill Slade.

* * *

><p><strong>Review, let me know what you think. I don't know Tamaranean, so I made up the names. If the reaction is good enough, I'll continue, but it just may remain a Beast Boy and Starfire story for now.<strong>

**Thanks,**

**Mors101**


End file.
